"Yes, of course, how should I be?" she said, tucking the notes into her bosom. "Thank you very much. I'm very much obliged to you, my lord duke." Spinning on her heel, she half ran from the library, again holding her skirts clear of her feet.
Tarquin stood frowning for a minute. Did that urgent request have anything to do with her visitors from Russell Street? It seemed likely. Highly likely, and he wasn't at all sure that he approved of Juliana's subsidizing Elizabeth Dennison's harlots. But she did have the right to some money of her own, and he didn't have the right to dictate how she should spend it. He found he'd lost interest in his ride and stood in fiercely frowning silence in the middle of the room.
"There, that's forty pounds." Juliana placed two of the bills on the table in her parlor before the astounded eyes of her friends. "So you won't need to spend your own money for Lucy's bail. Shall we go at once?"
"But… but is this your own money, Juliana?" Even the down-to-earth Lilly was astonished.
"In a manner of speaking," she said airily. "The duke gave it to me as part of my allowance. I wasn't sure whether I was to have one or not, but Lord Quentin said His Grace was generous to a fault, so I thought I'd put it to the test. And there you are." She indicated the riches on the table with a grandiose flourish, rather spoiling the effect by adding, "It isn't as if he can't afford it, after all."
"Well, I for one won't question such good fortune," Lilly said, tucking the notes into her beaded silk muff. "And I know Lucy won't."
"Then let's go at once." Juliana energetically strode to the door. "Do you know how to get there? Can we walk? Or should I order the carriage?" she added with another grand gesture.
"We can't go ourselves," Rosamund protested, shocked.
"But you have a footman downstairs."
"It's still no place for ladies," Emma explained. "The jailers are horrid and rude, and they'll ask for all sorts of extras before they'll release Lucy. Mr. Garston will go for us. They won't intimidate him."
"They won't intimidate me," Juliana declared. "Come, let's go. We'll hail a hackney, as there's not a moment to lose. Heaven only knows what miseries Lucy's enduring."
This consideration overrode further objections, although her companions were still rather dubious as they followed her down the stairs, where they collected the Dennisons' footman, Juliana told Catlett that she expected to be back for dinner, and they stepped out into the warm afternoon.
Chapter 14
Where are you off to, Lady Edgecombe?" Quentin was coming up the front steps as they emerged from the house. He bowed courteously to her companions.
"To the Marshalsea," Juliana said cheerfully. "To bail someone out."
"To the Marshalsea?" Quentin stared at her. "Don't be absurd, child."
"The footman will accompany us," she said, gesturing to the flunky behind her.
"The footman may accompany your friends, but Lady Edgecombe does not go to a debtors' prison," Quentin stated.
"Truly it would be best to ask Mr. Garston to go for us, Juliana," Emma put in, laying a tentative hand on Juliana's arm.
"Tarquin would flay me alive if I permitted it," Quentin declared.
Juliana regarded him steadily. "I understood I was free to go where I please."
"Not to the Marshalsea."
"Not even if you accompanied me?"
"Juliana, I have not the slightest desire to visit a debtors' prison."
"But you're a man of the cloth. Surely you have a duty to help your fellow man in need? And this is an errand of mercy." Her voice was all sweet reason, her smile cajoling, but Quentin was aware of a powerful determination behind the ingenuous facade.
"Why not follow your friend's suggestion and ask this Mr. Garston to go for you?"
"But that will take time. And that poor girl shouldn't languish in that place a minute more than necessary. I heard that the jailers torture the inmates for money, when of course they can't have any funds, because if they did, they wouldn't be there in the first place." Her eyes sparked with indignation and her cheeks were pale with anger, all pretense of ingenuous cajoling vanished. "You have a duty, Lord Quentin, to help those in trouble. Don't you?"
"Yes, I like to think so," Quentin said dryly. He was uncomfortably reminded that as a canon of Melchester Cathedral, he hadn't spent much time tending a flock. He was beginning to wonder why he'd ever felt Juliana needed protection and guidance. At this moment she hardly seemed like anyone's victim.
"We have the money," Juliana continued. "All forty pounds of Lucy's debt. And if the jailers demand more, I shall tell them to go hang," she added with a flashing eye. "If we allow them to get away with extortion, they'll do it to everyone."
"I'm sure you will keep them in line," Quentin murmured. "I pity the man who tries to stand in your path."
"Oh, you sound just like the duke," Juliana said. "So toplofty. But I tell you straight, my lord, you won't persuade me out of this."
"You are right that I am obliged to help those in trouble. " His mouth took a sardonic quirk that made him look even more like his half brother. "I am also obliged to keep people out of trouble. And I assure you, my dear Juliana, you will be up to your neck in hot water if Tarquin discovers you've been roaming around a debtors' prison."
Juliana was standing on the top step, half facing the open front door. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Lucien crossing the hall toward the drawing room. "If my husband doesn't object, I fail to see why the duke should." she said with a flash of inspiration. "I do beg your pardon for teasing you, Lord Quentin. Of course you mustn't trouble yourself over this for another minute."
She gave him a radiant smile and turned to the three young women. "I'll be back in an instant. Wait here for me." She hurried into the house, leaving Quentin staring uneasily after her, unsure whether he'd heard her aright.
"Oh, dear," Emma said. "Do you think Juliana is perhaps a little impetuous?"
"I fear that 'a little' is something of an understatement, ma'am," Quentin said. "Surely she's not intending to enlist Edgecombe's support?"
"I believe so, my lord," Rosamund said, her brown eyes wide and solemn in her round face.
"Excuse me." Quentin bowed briefly and strode into the house in search of Tarquin, leaving the women still on the steps.
Juliana had followed Lucien into the drawing room and closed the door behind her. "My lord, I need your leave to go on an errand," she stated straightaway.
"Good God! What's this?" Lucien exclaimed. "You are asking me for permission?"
"Indeed, my lord." Juliana curtsied. "You are my husband, are you not?"
Lucien gave a crack of laughter. "That's a fine fabrication, my dear. But I daresay it has its uses."
"Precisely," she said. "And since you are my husband, yours is the only leave I need to run my errand."
Lucien's harsh laugh rasped again. "Well, I'll be damned, m'dear. You're setting yourself up in opposition to Tarquin, are you? Brave girl!" He flipped open an enameled snuffbox and took a liberal pinch, his eyes like dead coals in his grayish pallor.
"I'm not precisely in opposition to His Grace," Juliana said judiciously, "since I haven't consulted him on the matter-indeed, I don't consider it his business. But I am consulting you, sir, and I would like your leave."
"To do what?" he inquired curiously.
Juliana sighed. "To go to the Marshalsea with bail for a friend of my friends."
"What friends?"
"Girls from the house where I was living before I came here," she said a touch impatiently, hoping that the duke wouldn't suddenly appear, summoned by Lord Quentin.
Lucien sneezed violently, burying his face in a handkerchief. It was a few minutes before he emerged, a hectic flush on his cheeks, his eyes streaming. "Gad, girl! Don't tell me Tarquin took you out of a whorehouse!" He chuckled, thumping his chest with the heel of one hand as his breath wheezed painfully. "That's rich. My holier-than-thou cousin finding me a wife from a whorehouse to save a family scandal. What price family honor, eh!"